Savoir Faire 2001

Since it is the 40th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon, it is apt that a mention of it is made on Savoir Faire. Before man had actually landed on the moon Stanley Kubrick had built a whole community on the moon, in “2001 A Space Odyssey”. Instead of the International Space Station we had a Hilton Hotel, serviced regularly by Pan Am rocket, and video phones were a part of everyday life. The most surprising part of all this is, that Kubrick had hired the Queen’s dressmaker Hardy Amies to dress us all in this groundbreaking science fiction movie.

An odd choice and many wondered whether Hardy was up to it, but design he did and the costumes are wonderful! Sir Hardy shook up his traditional image when he created the futuristic costumes which today are instantly recognisable. When costuming the movie there were several challenges involved. One scene had direct political undertones as this was the height of the cold war. When the American’s meet the Russians in the lobby of the Hilton Space Station, Amies made the Russians wardrobe appear as drab and shapeless as possible (which must have killed him) to comment on the social aspects of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 60’s.

Amies’ costumes blend in perfectly with the set decoration of the movie to create an overall concept of what we could expect of the future. Who can forget Kier Dullea in that wonderful spacesuit that has so much more panache and style than the current versions by NASA?

Pan Am’s hostesses in those wonderful almost cat like suits that were not only designed for practicality and comfort but looked good as well.

So to celebrate our landing on the moon and Sir Hardy’s birthday last week, we salute you Mr. Amies, for stepping out of your comfort zone with some savoir faire.

* Suggested reading Sir Hardy’s autobiography “Still Here”.

Breakfast Savoir Faire

Ok, I admit it! I am a creature of habit, and there are some things I do everyday, and having breakfast is one of them. Nutritionalists tell us it is the most important meal of the day and I am up there with them on that.

So what china do I eat my breakfast off? Villeroy and Boch’s Acapulco! This is definitely a breakfast service. I wouldn’t serve dinner on it as I think food would get lost in the patterned dinner plate, but for breakfast it is perfect.

The Acapulco pattern was inspired by colourful Mexican styled prints, with the birds and flowers originally used (to great success) by the company in 1977. This was so indicative of the 70’s and I think would have been quite at home even in the 1960’s. I love the bright colours and the stylised plant and bird motifs used, and they are a great start to any day. The overall shape is one of paired down simplicity, which allows bowls and cups to be stacked on top of each other as cylinders, saving on storage place in your cupboards.

Of course with changing times and tastes the pattern fell out of favour and Villeroy and Boch re issued it in the early 90’s with the colours somewhat muted which was not a success. They have since changed the shape completely and enlarged the patterns. My only comment on this is “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it”

So start eating breakfast and do it with some savoir faire on your favourite china!

Eccentric Savoir Faire

I was reading the An Aesthete’s Life the other day and a name cropped up which I was familiar with and had done a bit of research several years ago on the woman behind the name. What prompted me was I was reading Mary Stewart’s “The Gabriel Hounds” and one of the main characters was a modern day version (1960’s modern) of Lady Hester Stanhope. I re-read the book again earlier this year and just filed away Lady Hester in my subconscious only for her to reappear last week.

To say that Lady Hester had her ups and downs is a bit of an understatement. She started life in1776 as the favourite daughter of Lord Charles, 3rd Earl of Stanhope. Impoverished and orphaned at the age of 27, after her father gave away his fortune, she then became official hostess of William Pitt her uncle the Prime Minister of England. After being jilted three times in love she fled England at the age of 33, never to return.

She showed an initial sense for travel and savoir faire when still a child she was curious about France, she climbed into an empty boat on the English Channel and started rowing east, only to travel about 6 yards before being caught.

While travelling to Cairo in 1810, her ship was wrecked on the island of Rhodes, where without clothing; Lady Hester had to borrow Turkish Costume and thus began her favoured mode of attire, of dressing like a Turkish male. She continued to travel through the Middle East inspiring awe where ever she went. She saw herself as “Queen of the Desert” and thus lived appropriately to this status. By now Lady Hester had begun to believe she had a destiny. She claimed to have heard omens from various sources, from fortune-tellers to prophets, and that her destiny was to become the bride of a new messiah.

After her constant wanderings she finally settled near Sidon, a town on the Mediterranean coast in what is now Lebanon, about halfway between Tyre and Beirut. Here she built for herself a palatial palace Her residence, known by the villagers as Dahr El Sitt, was on the top of one of the hills surrounding the village.

In her new setting, she wielded an almost absolute authority over the surrounding districts. Her control over the natives was enough to cause Ibrahim Pasha, when about to invade Syria in 1832, to seek her neutrality, and this supremacy was maintained by her commanding character and by the belief that she possessed the gift of divination.

In her lonely Joun residence, a house "hemmed in by arid mountains", and with the troubles of a household of some thirty servants only waiting for her death to plunder the house, Lady Hester Stanhope's strength slowly wasted away, and she died there in 1839. The disappointments of her life, and the necessity of controlling her servants as well as the chiefs who surrounded Joun, had made her haughty and bad-tempered. She became a recluse and her servants began to take off with her possessions because she could not pay them. She would not receive visitors until dark and then would only let them see her hands and face. She wore a turban over her shaven head. After her death, the British consul arrived from Beirut to settle her affairs and found her quarters full of junk.

More Savoir Faire on the Lips

I remember as a child playing with a little brass pig that my mother had given me. This little pig was full of surprises. Not only was it a great plaything, but a highly decorative and functional item as well. For a small boy it was not only enough that you could play with it as an object, but it had moveable parts as well.


Pull the head off and you were confronted with a long brass tube. In the pig’s other life it was lipstick holder!


My mother had received it from a gentleman admirer in the 1950’s after one of his recent trips to Paris. I am not sure who had made it as the only markings are Paris-Depose, however it just oozes of surrealistic undertones and savoir faire. I am sure a few eyebrows were raised when my mother would pull this out of her purse to touch up her lips in a powder room somewhere. I still have this little pig and I still love it.

Truly an article de-luxe, that carries with it a lot of panache and savoir faire!

Some Friday Savoir Faire 1961

Some Friday Savoir Faire in the Place Vendome, Paris , from couturier Jean Desses.

Savon Faire!

Ok, I am a sucker for good soap and for good packaging, so if you put both of them together, well…... I am in heaven. Since time immortal soap has come a long way, with a virtual plethora of different soaps on the market from the humble toilette soap to incredible savons de luxe.

I always used to try and buy the matching soap to my colognes, however nowadays this is becoming increasingly difficult as the days of layering fragrance seems to have fallen out of fashion for men at least.

I am always on the hunt for good soap, but find myself falling back to a few old favourites, that not only do the job of keeping me clean, but look good in or out of their packaging.

One of my favourite brands is from Roger & Gallet, that veritable French Perfumery which has been around seemingly forever. I love the fact that the soaps come in their own plastic travelling case, so that they are instantly portable for vacation. Actually love all of R & G’s products!

Who knew that the Portuguese were any good at making soap, however two stellar brands come out on top on the soap scale.

The first being Luxo Banho soaps from Portugal. This giant luxury bath bar became the toast of Europe during the decorative 1920’s. The ornate Art Deco became synonymous with the new glamour and chic of modernism and is still available today.

The second Portuguese contender is Claus Porto founded in 1887. I love their packaging and the soap itself is milled 7 times. These can be bought singularly or in wonderful gift boxes containing several different bars, and the effect of all the labels is just brilliant.

Last on the list but by no means forgotten is one that we would always think of our mothers or grandmothers’ using is Yardley’s Old English Lavender. This is a true classic, as who can beat the scent of lavender for man or woman.

So lather up with some savoir faire and enjoy!

Savoir Faire in Venice

Well, Savoir Faire followers, vacation has been booked and I am ecstatic to say that we will be heading for la dolce vita in Italy and then onto Turkey for a couple of days in September. Espresso on the Via Venetto in Rome, maybe a negroni or two in Florence and of course the Guggenheim in Venice await.

What visit to Venice would be complete without a visit to the Guggenheim, Peggy Guggenheim’s palazzo on a canal turned into a museum? Poor Peggy, the expatriate American millionairess who amassed one of the world's foremost collections of modern art, certainly had a life full of ups and downs and plenty of savoir faire. A father who died on the Titanic, a luxurious and stifled upbringing in New York she threw herself into wild Bohemian life in Europe, and went through husbands and lovers as if there was no tomorrow. She was a patron of the arts and companion to the avant-garde whom the rest of society had shunned.

She collaborated with some of the most famous names of the day, in artistic ventures, or either married them or took them as lovers. Jean Cocteau,Djuna Barnes, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp,Constantin Brancussi,Kandinsky,Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, George Braque were just a few who crossed her path. And from all of these she bought and bought and bought amassing as I said before one of the most significant collections of modern art of the 20th century.

Over the years she had had several attempts at opening galleries in London and New York, however mostly these were commercial failures, as her taste was too avant-garde for the general public. One of her Galleries in New York featured some wonderful plywood chairs designed especially for the space and two of these are in the current Surrealist exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto.

The failure of her commercial ventures didn’t stop her from collecting, and eventually she had decided in the 1960’s to exhibit what she had already owned in her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal in Venice.

She ruled over Venice like an Empress and the public were her court. She took on an almost majestic appearance in her gondolier with her trademark bizarre sunglasses and her dogs around her. On her death she donated her large home and her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. With true savoir faire she is buried next to the museum with her beloved dogs.

“If Venice sinks, the collection should be preserved somewhere in the vicinity of Venice.”